The air in the Dubai lab tasted like burnt sugar and ozone. My shoulder was a knot of pain where a bullet had grazed it. Kenji was bleeding from a cut above his eye, the blood mixing with sweat and grime. Caiman was just a wall of heaving muscle next to me, a piece of rebar bent in his hands like a cheap spoon.
We stood in the control room of the Burj Khalifa’s secret heart. The last lab. Or the latest one. I’d lost count.
In front of us, on the main console, a countdown glowed in cool, digital green: 02:17… 02:16…
We’d fought our way up the private elevator shaft, through two floors of Gen-2 guards who moved like wind-up toys. We found this room empty. Just the hum of machines and that timer.
A system-wide purge. Initiated remotely.
Screens showed the lab floors below. Tanks. Rows an
